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Yah. Not much chatter online here recently. Just rushing from task to task basically. And tonight is no exception. I just went through the pile of crap on my desk in the home-office and found my PST return sitting there, and that is due in Jan 23. Yah. My small business, that keeps getting smaller, still must file PST and GST returns on time. So, here I sit, reviewing last year's take, and figuring out how much PST to forward to Gordo down at the Ledge. Maybe I'll just drop off a cheque in the morning when I cruise by on the way to catch the bus...

Should be a busy day in the home bakery here....started the pannetone dough last night, and the aim today is to turn out 4 pannetone. So far so good. Got the candied fruit online this time, soaking in a bath of rum and extracts. Ran out of vanilla, so tossed in extra lemon. Also got 2 loaves of sourdough bread on deck, and I have just been reminded that I am making some sort of cake for dinner tomorrow night. Have just poured the first egg nog latte, and am streaming in the 80s....kiddies have gone down to Empress Hotel for a bit to see the trees....hope Wolfe leaves a few of them standing for everyone else to enjoy.

Don't think I'll have time to squeeze in another batch of shortbread cookies, but have already done 3 batches in the past week. Something went sideways on batches 2 and 3 in that the shapes lost their shape. The cookies spread out on the pan in the oven, so my angels with their pretty wings appeared to have added all this flab around the mid-section, and under the arms. The holly leaves lost their points, and the XMAS trees lost their crisp outline, as if they were laden with a winter's snow. They still taste yummy though.

No, I'm not going to offer a "login with twitter" service to coreman.com, but did want to link to this article on how Twitter is offering the OAuth authorization-delegtion protocol service. Given that I just started using the Twitter-based services at tweetree.com, I figured a link into more info about OAuth was due here...

Mom, this one isn't really for you, I'm just dealing with stuff down here in the areas of authentication and authorization....

I kind of like the user/system interaction diagram on this page. I've got to get that working locally. That is the next step. After setting up the IdP. And the SSO stack. Ok, I've got a bunch to do here.

These whole-wheat sourdough loaves just came out of the oven, and I let them cool for about 1/2 an hour before I could no longer resist slicing off the first chunk, to consume with melted butter. YUM.

Since returning from California, I've thawed the starter, and been diligently feeding it on 3-4 day intervals with a nice organic whole-wheat bread flour, that I'm picking up at LifeStyles in the 10 KG bag. Always good to have a large stash of that in the magic-pantry eh? I'd say the starter has great legs at this point.....with quite an active wild yeast.

These loaves got their start on Thursday night, when I mixed the firm starter after dinner. Basically threw together 2/3 cup starter, with 4.5 oz whole-wheat flour, and 1/4 cup of water. Left it in a beaker on the kitchen counter and it doubled in volume in under 2 hours! Left it in the fridge overnight for some cold-fermentation. Went to work on Friday, leaving the firm starter in the fridge. This is the part of the bread-making where it is just making itself.

After dinner on Friday, I de-chilled the starter out of the fridge, then threw it into the final dough with 20.25 oz. of red-fife sifted wheat flour and 1.75 cups lukewarm water. I do the mixing in the KitchenAid, for a total of 12 minutes, followed by (in this case) about 5 minutes of kneading. There is also about 20 minutes of dough-resting in there where I'm just waiting for enough gluten strands to form up and give us some stretchiness to the dough. It has to hold a stretch between the hands, and not tear apart. After the dough was ready to rise, I left it in a beaker on the counter-top about 10 PM. Went to bed around 11:30 and it was still rising.

For a bit there in the summer, I was experimenting with spiking the dough with commercial yeast, just to get the primary fermentation complete before bed-time. That did indeed complete the batch faster, but I didn't like the result as much as just leaving the wild yeast on its own to do its thing. So, I've been leaving the dough out on the kitchen counter over-night, and coming down in the wee hours to shape the loaves.

For these loaves, I shaped them around 3 AM, when I happened to be up anyway. If it's not the kids getting me up, then it's the 2 cups of herb tea I drink before bed time. So, with loaves shaped about 3 AM, I left them out on the counter to rise. This can take about 4 hours, depending on the room temperature. A little longer this morning, as it was a bit more chilly inside. I threw them in the oven around 830 AM (I think) for about 35 mins at 350 F.

So there you have it - fresh, home-made, whole-wheat sourdough. I'll do this routine about 3 times per week, and feed the starter 2 times per week. I'm feeding the starter enough to double its volume every time (usually keeping an average of about 12 oz. to double).

Yes, I had to turn off comments on here for a bit. The comment-spammers were getting through the CAPTCHA, and I just didn't have time to sit down here and fix it. Will turn back on for now...

Thanks so much everyone who donated to my MOvember campaign last month....it looks like our team at UVic raised $2800.00 ! Good stuff, good looks, and a great cause! We had our MOvember wind-up lunch last week on campus, and then various team members proceeded to shave off their MO. I am still with MO, and am a little undecided as to the next steps. I think I will likely shave it off before XMAS, and forge through the winter with the clean-shaven look, not regularly seen since March/2008....

On this Remembrance Day 2009 we link to a site set up by Canada's official war poet.

My Movember campaign is underway, with donations pledged to support this most excellent cause!

Thanks JR!

Ok, I tossed the Kuki install, and went for crunchbang linux distro instead. Also a good pick for the Acer Aspire One netbook. The distro is like Kuki in that it is based on Ubuntu, and this time the installer had no problem. Got it installed off a bootable USB, thanks to UNetBootin for WinDoze. Tips on the net were to install the Kuki kernel post-install so I did the 2.6.31-rc9-kuki kernel install, as that should smooth out any rough edges on hardware support. Just tried the Skype client and got audio, and video, so I guess we're ready to rock...!

Ok, I heard about National Novel Writing Month from a colleague at work. Sounds epic, but I am not worthy. There is no WAY I can write a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days. I wish all you hard-core writers all the best at pumping your word-count!

I found out from this blog about National Blog Posting Month just now. That is something I could probably accomplish, but I am clearly off to a late start. I will pitch in what I can for the rest of the month, as I am clearly capable of posting daily, even though I haven't been posting all that often in the past year. This is indeed a challenge!

Been working on installing the Kuki Linux distro on my Acer Netbook. Got gparted on my side to shrink the Win XP partition and create some space. Unofrtunately, the default installer chokes on the hard-disk and says I have a disk failure. Hmmm....that's odd. I liked the error message though, in suggesting that I might have a dirty CD and that I might clean it...?

Here is the instructional video.

So I head out onto the web to look for Olympic torch photos. Most specifically, I want to see this thing about the torch riding a wave up in Tofino. I end up on the CTV BC web-site, and they have this photo gallery - great! I click on the link for the gallery, expecting to see the access point for the photos, thumbnails, or whatever.........

But, OH NOOOOOOOOO! I get a splash page saying that I need to load a Microsoft product into my browser to make my photo viewing experience better.

Gimme a break. I know how to click on an image, and my Firefox browser on Linux works just fine for showing images. I'm sure that the site authors had a heck of a duke-out in the board-room with the Marketing squad over that one. It's clear who won that battle. I'm now off to search for another online gallery....see ya'....

Yes, I am participating in the Movember prostate cancer fund-raiser. I have trimmed the beard, and donned the clean-shaven look to start the month. There are a bunch of us up at UVic going in on a team-event this month, so it should be fun. Here is a link to my donation page, if you wish to support my efforts to change the face of men's health...! Thanks!

I went out last night after dark to drop the kitchen compost in the earth-machine. I must have left the back-door open a crack, as a tiny field mouse ended up inside. It wasn't until shortly after I came in that I startled it from where it was perched up on the curtain rod. It came spiraling down the curtains, and disappeared somewhere into the corner. It was already almost midnight, and I thought I was heading to bed.

The mouse ended up booting in under the kickboard below the cupboards next to the dishwasher. Me and Lance poked around down in there, but to no avail. He must have creeped fully out of sight behind the dishwasher or the range. *sigh*

By the time I crawled back into bed, Charlotte was up, and heard me and Justine talking about this midnight mouse caper. Charlotte rather liked the idea of a little mouse living in our kitchen, and perhaps we should just let it be. Well, we advised her that little mousey probably had a family out in the yard somewhere, and would it not be a good idea to re-unite them ?

While I was thinking of a standard mouse-trap setup (SNAP!), we'd set the stage for a much more civilized opportunity to trap the critter alive, so as to ensure a rodent-family reunion.

Luckily, Mommy did the research today, and found this non-lethal mouse trap setup, and she set it up in the middle of the kitchen floor. While we were watching SYTYCD on the PVR this evening, mousey managed to wiggle into the tube, SCAM the bait and disappear back into his kitchen hide-out! Bummer - he didn't tip over into the bin! So, we re-baited the tube, and balanced it a little more precariously over the edge of the chair. While I was sitting here contemplating this blog, I heard the unfamiliar sound of a mouse-loaded cardboard tube landing in a pile of shredded newspaper, coming from the kitchen. I decided to go check it out at once!

I peeked into the bin, and there I saw the mouse, with just his face peeking out of the edge of the tube, wondering no doubt what was going to happen next. I opened the front door to hasten my exit with the loaded trap, and went to pick up the bin. The mouse jumped out of the tube and started to dance around in the newspaper a bit - certainly a frisky one. I put the bin down for a second to let him mellow out, and re-convince myself that there was NO WAY he was going to skitter up the side of the bin and escape.

I took the bin out onto the gravel in the side yard and tipped it over. Out darted the mouse, quickly running along the fence line. Luckily, I can tell Charlotte that our mouse has gone back to find his family in the backyard....

Got off the Coho and breezed up to the Customs booth for our little chat with the agent. We were only packing a bit of wine, and no fruit and veggies. Honest. We were squeeky clean, and not traveling with anything that would cause a scene. He checked our passports, and verified we were all present and accounted for.

"Corey?" he asked.

Hmmm, I wondered if my beardless mug shot isn't quite lining up with my current whiskered appearance....

"Yes?" I replied.

"First chance you get, sign your passport."

"Ok!"

He let us pass with this minor issue, and we got home shortly thereafter. I guess I forgot that I was instructed to sign my passport the last time I came through there. Anyhow, I did my homework upon getting into the home-office.

Stopped at the Tourist Info Centre, and got directions to the Dream Playground on Race St. I learned that the town poured 1/4 million bucks into this park for kids. Cool. We got there, and it turned out to be the BEST playground we stopped at on our trip! I'll throw the pics up when I unpack the camera, but check it out : 2 zones, a tot spot for minis under 5, and a big-kids zone, for the 5-12 set. Huge maze castle to climb through, slides, ladders, places to swing, even a set of bells to play - can you say "DING DANG DONG!"

Anyhoo, great play session, then it was time to head for the Coho terminal....

Made some corn tortilla roll-ups in the parking lot, with what we had left in the cooler, which included: packs of corn tortillas, mayo, pickles, cheese. We chowed. Heavily. Great prep for ferry trip.

Last leg of trip. Left Vancouver, WA at 0654 this AM.

The local Starbucks inside Safeway was open at 0500, so we stopped right away for hot bevvies. No, I'm not really a fan of going there, but we've run into some coffee challenges en route this time. I like the little coffee shacks that pop up on the side of the road. Never know what you're gonna get. With Starbucks there is a certain degree of standardization that is playing a role for the crew, and they're liking their fancy drinks just so. I'm typically just getting a brewed coffee, and I'll take whatever I get. At 'bucks though, I have learned that I can best manage a half-decaf brewed 16 oz for the road.

Anyhoo, the drive was a little foggier than planned. Lance took the first leg, and we made one Rest Area stop for relief. Didn't go for the free coffee, but did acquire a free cup of Winnie the Pooh cookies for the kids. Eeyore and Tigger were crunchier than expected.

We made pretty good time this morning, making the exit for the 101 in Tumwater somewhere around 0900. Lance was heading for a gas stop in Shelton, so that is where I took the helm. While pumping another tank of 87 octane into the van, I noticed a drive-thru coffee shack across the parking lot. Great! Grabbed a couple of 16 oz. Americanos and headed north. Not too much fog on this leg. Didn't need to stop for coffee in Hoodsport, at that coffee joint I am sure I have blogged about before....lemme look that up.....

Went through Potlatch, then Sequim, and arrived in Port Angeles around 1100, with plenty of time to make the ferry. First order of business : find a playground for kiddies...

Left Yreka, CA at 0511 this AM. Too early to stop at the local Java shack so headed northbound right away, with me driving. I noted the warning signs for leaping deer placed every few miles along the road north of town. The signs are true. While driving Wolfe to sleep last night, I encountered 3 leaping out on the road, and I had enough time to stop and let them cross. Hitting a deer at this point would put a huge dent in the trip.

Tried for a coffee stop in Medford before the sun rose, but could not find a stop, so returned to the freeway sans java. It was for the best anyway, because the kids were sleeping, and I like to make as many miles as possible while they are sawing logs. Gives us all a break, and we can make up a lot of miles without stopping. As soon as everyone gets coffeed, the next thing that happens is someone wants to go pee, we pull over, the kids wake up, and then we lose the momentum.

Stopped at a rest area just south of Roseburg, and stepped out for a stretch, and let kids run around in the grass. We've stopped at this Rest Area on past trips, and not much has changed. Except on this morning, it was a little foggy and chilly. Not a shorts-morning, which is what I had on. Wolfe thought it was his turn to drive, so I caught him behind the wheel here in the photo before we left. Wolfe, the driver's seat is NOT FOR BABIES.

I drove on to Roseburg, and pulled off at the 76 Station (on Corey Court!) for a full-serve, then found out where the Starbuck's was at the Fred Meyer off Exit 125 and went there. At this point in the trip I can successfully order Charlotte's special drink:

• Half-fill an 8 oz. cup with steamed milk, 120 degrees F. Fill with whipped cream, and top with chocolate drizzle.

Lance took the wheel, and we hit that long straight-away heading northbound towards Albany. I snoozed a bit in there, as well as tossed the crackle-book around with Wolfe.

We pulled off just north of Salem for a break, then made it through Portland before noon - whew! Last time we went North through Portland it was rush-hour and a fairly tense drive. This time, we breezed over the bridges without incident, and made it to Vancouver, WA around 1215.

We're staying on route 99 in Salmon Creek. Just a couple of blocks from Klineline Park, where we took the kids to play for a couple of hours after getting off the road. Too bad the sprayground is closed for the season, as it still felt like summer once the day heated up a bit.

Up at 0345 or so....Wolfe kind of restless. Decided to hit the road. On the I5 at 0454, with plenty of other commuters. Lance drove the first leg, and we made good time while kiddies sleeping on the trip past Stockton and Sacramento. We had to stop in Williams for a coffee, and found the Java Stop off the freeway. The alternative was McDonald's, Burger King, or the Shell Station. Rolled out of there smoothly, and was poised for a return to the freeway when Charlotte dropped her drink on her lap. Ooops. Had to pull over pronto for clean-up ops at the gas station. Napkins, STAT.

Driver change. I took the wheel, and set cruise control for 72 MPH and made a plan to hit Redding before 0900. Kiddies got restless south of Red Bluff, so we pulled off there at 0840 and found a playground behind the community centre to stop for a snack and run-around. A brisk wind through the park, so we got a bit chilly.

Grabbed gas and more coffee for the next leg of the trip, leaving Red Bluff at 1015. Got 20 minutes down the road and Charlotte needed a bathroom break, so we found a Chevron station, mini-mart, and Mexican restaurant. Beauty.

Back on the freeway for the trek through the mountains, past Shasta Lake, Mount Shasta, and Weed. We joined the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway for part of the trip, including past Black Butte.

Got to Yreka at 1240, done travelling for the day.

Packed up in the morning, and left Shell Beach around 11 AM under sunny skies. The last glimpse of the ocean I had was off towards the pier at Avila Beach, before cresting the hill on the freeway, and leaving the ocean behind for good. Hope we can come back next year. We needed to do a 4-hour drive north, and inland to Tracy, CA. Made a brief stop in San Luis Obispo about 11:30 AM, and loaded up with with coffees and scones.

I drove the first leg. taking the 101 north from SLO through: Santa Margarita, Atascadero, Templeton, Paso Robles, San Miguel, Bradley, San Ardo, San Lucas, King City, Greenfield. We needed a stop around Greenfield, as the kids were getting itchy. Decided to push past Soledad, Gonazales, then Chualar and press on to Salinas. Grabbed the first gas stop in Salinas, at the 76 station next to a Denny's diner. I think we have eaten at that one before. (This will be the 4th time I've done this trip.) I asked the clerk for a park with a playground, and he told me to go to the next exit, Main St, and take a right at the first light. So we did, and ended up at the Salinas Community Centre. A very nice playground indeed (pictured here). The kids played for an hour, and we had some lunch. We're packing home-made sandwiches, so that was good.

Once again, all around Salinas thousands of acres of vegetables. Saw trucks loaded with cases of romaine lettuce and celery trucking along the highway. Miles and miles of rows of lettuce.

Lance drove the next leg, taking route 156 up past San Juan Batista, to Hollister, where we had a little challenge finding Charlotte a place to go pee. We stopped at 2 service stations that do not offer the service of a public restroom. Ok, fine. We asked the nice ladies at a Mexican restaurant, and they said OK. *whew*

On the stretch past Hollister, we saw lots of field tomato crops and many truckloads of tomatoes being transported off the fields, to the packing house.

We took route 152 over the Pacheco Pass and past the San Luis Reservoir, and State Recreation Area. We got onto Interstate 5 at the junction just past the dam, and headed north.

We passed by mandarin orange and lemon groves near Patterson. The California Aqueduct passes under the freeway here and there.....

We reached the target stop in Tracy around 1745, and will probably be up very early to leave in the wee hours, as we did for the trip down. Travelling with the kids is a lot easier before the sun rises....

Whoa. Major surf event coming to Tofino. Cool.

Today is our last day here in Shell Beach. We spent some time this afternoon cleaning up the car, and starting to pack some stuff up in it. We are returning with more stuff than we brought, so Lance has been rather creative in packing a few things away in various spots inside the van. I've stowed my board away until next time, and we'll leave Charlotte's bike down here too.

Charlotte and I stayed home this afternoon to have some lunch, do some drawing in Daddy's journal, and make a trip down the street to the beach. Charlotte ride on her bike, and we brought the wooden duck-windmill with us. Sure was windy today! That ducky was really whipping his legs around, which Charlotte really enjoyed hanging from her handle-bars.

The local beach is at the end of the block, and a real quick trip. We got down there to play in the sand, and check out the local tidal pools. We found some snails and crabs, but no sand-flies, which Charlotte doesn't really like. She says they fly away when Daddy shows up, so maybe they are a little skittish around big Daddys ? Hmmm....anyhoo, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we climbed around on the rocks, and got our toes wet in the waves coming in up the beach. We went home to get some dry pants on, and made a plan to come back on a secret mission : to find sea anemones.

Charlotte is all about going on secret missions these days....except they often don't remain a secret for very long. The other night we went on a secret-mission to find secret beaches in the neighbourhood. We had to tell Mommy where we were going of course, so she knew where we were going....

On the way home from the tidal pool mission, Charlotte scraped her knee, so needed some special care on the return to home. I was handed Wolfe in exchange, and he was all interested in digging around in the yard. This yard is already well-groomed, and not for digging, so I decided to load him up in the stroller, and take him down to the beach with 2 shovels. We had the tiny sand bucket shovel, and the recently found "big sand shovel". Once down on the beach, we got into some fairly serious digging, as you can see here with Wolfe using both shovels....

Leaving tomorrow, so wanted to head out for a bit more surf this morning. Threw the board, and my wetsuit into the van, and headed to Spyglass Park first, because I could see it was going off from where we are staying. I got there, parked the van, and peered over the bluff to check it out. It looked nice, a bit windy, and about 10 guys out, with more arriving to check conditions. I wasn't quite feeling up to it this time, so decided to head down to the Pier.

Man was it windy down there. I unloaded my gear, got suited, then headed down towards the steps leading to the beach. A few guys were heading back out from their session. I like to make a point of talking to the other surfers I see, so asked a few guys how it went this morning. The first guy said it was really choppy, and maybe I should go a bit further north on beach. The second guy said it was "pretty rough out there" but that he "had to get some surf". The third guy said it was "choppy as hell".

Oh well. Some days you just got to take whatever the beach is throwing at you.

So, I went out there and did what I could. Got blown around a bit, and ended up drifting south towards the pier. Got out and walked back up the beach before going back in. Caught a couple of short rides before something strange happened. I was paddling out, and this wave was breaking in front of me, so I go to duck it, no biggee - except there was so much juice in the white-water breaking on me that it started pushing me backwards towards the beach. Ok, I'll just let it pass under me now. I kind of got stuck in it going backwards, and it decided to turn me around, so I just go with it, and then come out facing the beach, and decide to ride it anyway. Ok, so this isn't exactly what I planned, but did teach me that it is possible to ride waves on a longboard backwards - just like I see them do on the surf videos....except they do it with much more intent, and style.

It is fairly choppy out there, and the rides are short-lived. I catch a smaller wave to end the set, and ride it all the way into the beach, and decided that this wave would be the last that I would catch in this chapter....

I will live to surf again.

Trips to the grocery store are a pile of fun. Here you can see we got really lucky and found the shopping cart with the kiddie-car at the front. This cart has the car with 1 steering wheel, and is made for one toddler. There is another cart that has the 2-seater, but we did not find that one, and Wolfe managed to muscle in on his sister to take the helm here. You can see that he really loves steering wheels.


Here is something I thought was a little odd. I go down a canned foods aisle, and see this little screen attached to the shelf with a sign on it that invites me to push the button. Oh dear. So I push the button, and this really bad commercial comes on. I don't think I will even mention the tuna product by name here, because they don't really need coverage on coreman.com, when they have these shelf-mounted TVs in the grocery stores. Like really, is playing a bad commercial for your product in a retail environment going to actually influence a consumer buying decision ? I guess the answer is yes, or they wouldn't have gone through the effort to establish this kind of advertising. Weird.

Headed down to Oceano Dunes this morning, right at the end of Grand Ave. The nice lady at the entry booth asked us if we would be driving on the dunes today, and we said "No", so she invited us to park for free and walk to the beach. Sounds good to me, as I didn't want to get any more sand in or on the van at this point. We're driving around with a bunch of sand in the van at this point...


Charlotte and I went trooping through the dunes at the edge of the beach, and Wolfe came too. She found someone's fire pit and a few pieces of charcoal scattered around it, so named the trail leading from it the "charcoal trail". The dunes have all these fairly hardy bushes growing through them, and their roots are exposed on the ground, which makes walking on them barefoot a little prickly. As I was walking along, I was remembering all the creepy-crawlies that we saw at the zoo the other day. Hmm. Wonder if any of those creepy spiders are out here....

Charlotte and I had the most fun with a sand bucket, and piece of kelp down on the shoreline. We had the handle of the bucket held up by the kelp, and we ran around on the beach in the water scooping up sand and water and swinging and skipping the bucket around, splashing the contents everywhere. She thought this was a really fun thing to do. She had her pink wetsuit on and pink hat, and looked like such a charm, laughing all the way. The sun came out too, so that was super nice.

The Marie Callender's Restaurant and Bakery is just down the road by Pismo Beach. The semi-annual pie sale is on, and we've had a few pies now. Coconut Cream tonight. Rhubarb last night. And the night before. Also a Peach pie in there. Plus the Double-Cream Blueberry. Also had the Double-Cream Lemon. Did a Pumpkin pie too. What have I forgotten ? Oh yeah, I really wanted Pecan pie, so grabbed one of those babies earlier this week.

Justine says she is getting a little pied-out, so good thing it is about time to go home....

Went to the Steaming Bean with the gang this AM, and enjoyed an iced drink they call the Chunky Monkey - ice, vanilla chai, peanut butter, and banana. It was like a meal in a cup - good stuff, and likely what I needed before heading out onto the waves. We were going to head over to Spyglass Park so the kids could play in the playground, but Charlotte decided she wanted to beach it. So, we ended up down at Silver Shoals, were there were a few waves, and NOBODY out there.

I bombed the longboard down onto the beach, and figured I would give it a shot, even though the rideable waves were a little infrequent. While I was putting on the suit, 6 other dudes showed up and headed out, so maybe they figured something more was going to happen. I ended up talking to a couple of the old-timers that packed their longboards down onto the beach, and picked up some key local info on the beach, and wave conditions. The other 4 guys had shortboards, and were heading farther south down the beach.

I paddled out and waited, and waited, and waited. No problem. The sun was out, and the water was nice. Always great to be out on the waves and full sun. I caught the first wave a little late, and ended up pearling it - poobah. This beachbreak offers no underwater hazards so it was a fairly soft (and safe) landing. Headed back out and the next wave I caught ran out of juice, so got no ride. Blah. I headed back out for the next one, and waited a while and it never really came. I noticed the old-timers were catching some good rides, as they had a slightly better position on the sandbar. One of those brahs been riding here for 35 years, so no wonder they got the inside scoop.

Paddled in, and the kids were beached out, so we took them home to dry off, have lunch, and plan the afternoon activity....

Here is a site featuring pictures of the neighbourhood where we are staying, check it out at shellbeachpictures.com.

Made the short 12 mile drive out to Avila Beach today to enjoy more fun in the sun. It was so baking out there by noon that the sandy beach began to sear my bare feet. I'm beginning to feel quite crisp all over, actually. They've built a great new playground next to the beach, so the kids played there for a bit after frolicking around in the waves.

They've actually rebuilt quite a bit of the town since the great oil leak disaster. If you are interested in massive environmental cleanup operations, I highly recommend you read this review of the Avila Beach deconstruction and rebuild.